1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Esquire's The War Against Youth

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Alma, Apr 3, 2012.

  1. dreunc1542

    dreunc1542 Active Member

    It's a heavy cross I have to carry, but carry it I do.
     
  2. swamp trash

    swamp trash Guest

    My parents were middle-middle-class and I've come to the conclusion that I will be lucky to ever get to that point.

    They tried their best to give us things but were always in danger of losing the house, going bankrupt, etc. When it came time to go to college I got a 20-year-old truck and a promise to pay half my student loans. The latter which never happened....but hey, like most people they are just doing the best they can.

    So now my wife and I, both in our mid-30s have a 9-month-old. We both work full-time newspaper jobs. She pays the rent and her car note, I pay the daycare and my car note. Hopefully between the two of us we have enough left over for a few groceries and our phone/utility bills. Student loan bills, credit cards and medical bills get paid when we are able.

    It sucks but there's no point in being angry about it. What are you gonna do? I just hope by the time my kid is our age things have changed for the better.
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I don't really follow.

    Granted, the whole, "I pulled myself up by the bootstraps" line is annoying. My father in law spouts it all the time. I guess you can apply it to individuals. But when society as a whole is suffering, there are systemic problems.

    At the same time, at a micro level, certainly with the right guidance an individual, even one from a lower or lower middle-class family, can navigate the system to his or her benefit. I'd hate to just, like, sacrifice them - individuals, I mean - to prove a point.

    It reminds me of the discussion on teen pregnancy, where some posters keep chiming in that it should be left to "individual responsibility," and that's that. That's the problem. No, the state should set policy that incentivizes and fosters good decision-making. But, at an individual level, a person can still choose to use a condom or take birth control. Because, really, the issue is that a class of people are not doing so. The over arching policy dilemma is how to get that class of people to begin doing so in greater numbers. Or making better education choices in greater numbers.

    Someone was right about loans, though. While I maintain they serve a very good purpose, in opening education to the 99 percent, they also distort the market for education because people treat it like insurance or credit. They overconsume.
     
  4. dreunc1542

    dreunc1542 Active Member

    As LTL pointed out, I was being facetious. I completely agree that there are large systemic issues at play here that people usually ignore with their individual anecdotes.
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    No, no. I get that you were being sarcastic. I guess I wasn't sure which line of arguments that had appeared in this thread that this was a response to.

    Like I said, to me there are two not-incompatible concepts here:

    (1) The YankeeFan/YGFKM-endorsed "bootstraps" theory. That opportunities are available to individuals who care to navigate them.

    (2) But they tend to ignore the next necessary question: How do we set up a system where more people are educated about those opportunities and take them? And how do we set up a system where there are more opportunities actually available that add value to the economy? Because an individual can pull himself up from the bootstraps. But all individuals could not. Because, as the article illustrates, there just aren't enough value-adding jobs available right now.
     
  6. dreunc1542

    dreunc1542 Active Member

    But the bootstraps idea also inherently ignores that doing that is going to be much more difficult for some people than others. It doesn't sacrifice them, as you say, to point out that they started from a tougher position.
     
  7. king cranium maximus IV

    king cranium maximus IV Active Member

    And the rippity-rap music, and saggy jeans...
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    So, are you guys telling me that if you graduate college at 22, with a mountain of debt, you're not going to get rich by working 40 hours a week at minimum wage?

    What a shit economy this is. What a crappy country.

    That used to always be a simple recipe for success.
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The "bootstraps theory" is simply the vocalization of the economic end-zone dancing inherent in the Uberclass mindset -- "I made it, you didn't, and it's your own damn fault" -- and the punitive mentality focused on making people "pay" for "poor life choices," many made decades ago.
     
  10. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Here's the problematic thing with what you're saying, dreunc.

    There are thousands, nay millions, of kids coming out of upper-middle class backgrounds every year who DON'T do the right thing, who DON'T try to put themselves in position to be functioning members of society through education or whatever.

    As long as we have THAT problem, I really can't be too hard on people who believe they've accomplished something because mom and dad paid for their college education ... and they accepted it and ran with it.
     
  11. dreunc1542

    dreunc1542 Active Member

    Are you saying there are even close to as many opportunities to find good jobs for students graduating now as there were 20-30-40 years ago?
     
  12. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Well, it used to be. That was mostly due to fortunate global economic circumstances, but we convinced ourselves it was something awesome and intrinsic about America. And we're going to bankrupt our future futilely trying to get it back.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page